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Cayla Barnes Serves as Role Model for Girls’ Hockey in California

By Heather Rule, 12/20/22, 4:00PM EST

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The California native played a national team game in her home state for the first time Dec. 19 during Rivalry Series

Cayla Barnes skates during Team USA practice.

In Eastvale, California, near Anaheim and Los Angeles, the four older brothers in the Barnes family played roller hockey. Naturally, younger sister Cayla Barnes started playing roller hockey, too. 

“I just loved it from the start,” Barnes said. “I just kept going with it. But I definitely got into it because they all played, and I just wanted to do what they did.”

Barnes, a defender on the U.S. Women’s National Team’s roster for the December Rivalry Series games in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, was looking forward to the Dec. 19 game at Crypto.com Arena. That gave her the opportunity to play hockey on such a high-level stage with plenty of her family members and friends in the stands.

Barnes has represented the U.S. on several stages, include two Olympic Winter Games (gold-2018, silver-2022) and four IIHF Women's World Championships. 

“This is the first time they get to see me play on the national team here,” Barnes said prior to the game. “So I’m really excited to have the chance to play in California.”

Barnes didn’t just suit up; she opened the scoring just over four minutes into the game to give the U.S. an early 1-0 lead.

She was patient with the puck at the blue line before firing a high shot through traffic and into the net for her first point of the Rivalry Series. There was a teddy bear toss planned that evening for after the first U.S. goal was scored, so Barnes also sent the teddy bears flying to the ice.

“It was an awesome feeling, family and friends are here. Just to get that first one in early, is incredible,” Barnes said during a first-intermission interview on the NHL Network broadcast.

Barnes also participated in the ceremonial puck drop prior to the start of the game, another honor she was excited to take part in, with her loved ones watching.

“Just definitely having them in the stands where I don’t usually get this opportunity is more than enough for me,” Barnes said.

Team USA ended up falling to Canada 3-2 in overtime, though the U.S. left the December Rivalry Series still up 3-2 in the seven-game series.

While it wasn’t the result that Barnes and the team wanted, she walked away inspired by the week in Los Angeles and the support from the community – the same community where she grew up.

Barnes started out playing youth hockey on the 10U Anaheim Ducks and Lady Ducks teams, and then joined the 12U LA Selects and 14U LA Kings teams. 

She knew by about age 11 watching the 2010 Olympics that she “wanted to make this the real deal” by playing college hockey and shooting for making a national team roster.

“I wanted to do all those things,” Barnes said. “And I kind of knew that there were opportunities on the east coast to do that, to get recruited, to get seen, to get those opportunities.”

Given this realization, she shifted her playing to the opposite coast, skating for the 14U, 16U, and 19U East Coast Wizards in Massachusetts. She then played hockey at New Hampton School in New Hampshire before committing to Boston College, where she’s currently a senior and in her second season as team captain. 

Barnes has seen the resources improve in California since she played youth hockey there. Where she grew up in Eastvale, there was one girls’ hockey club at the time, making it difficult to find teams to play on through her development years.

She has since watched the number of girls playing hockey and the number of girls’ hockey teams grow.

“The bigger the sport grows and the more girls that play, the more opportunities they have, and the bigger the player pool gets, there’s more depth,” Barnes said. “And it creates a whole chain of resources that helps them.”

“I think that has really grown in California. There are a lot more girls who play than when I was growing up,” Barnes said. “So it’s great to see all the girls and opportunities that they get to have that I didn’t necessarily have when I was growing up.”

As the game has grown, she takes a sense of pride with her hockey roots planted in California, referring to it as “really special and unique.”

“It’s awesome to be a role model for young girls that are kind of in the same position as me here in California,” Barnes said. “I’ve met and talked with a lot of them. So it’s really special, I would say, to be able to be that for young girls.” 

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.


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